This story was originally published on Minnesota Reformer. [1]
   Published here under Creative Commons License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
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Hennepin Healthcare: No, the vaccine does not contain the “Mark of the Beast”
By:   ['J. Patrick Coolican Is Editor-In-Chief Of Minnesota Reformer. Previously', 'He Was A Capitol Reporter For The Minneapolis Star Tribune For Five Years', 'After A Knight-Wallace Fellowship At The University Of Michigan', 'Time At The Las Vegas Sun', 'Seattle Times', 'A Few Other Stops Along The Way. He Lives In St. Paul With His Wife', 'Toddler Son.', 'J. Patrick Coolican']
Date: None

American’s scientific ignorance is fairly well established. A Pew Research Center survey of American adults found that 60% of the respondents didn’t know how antacids work. About half struggled to identify a scientific hypothesis.

The COVID-19 pandemic, however, has put our ignorance on full display, with many Americans pushing their favored political agenda — shutdown! No shutdown! — based on the strength of their skills as amateur epidemiologists.

And now that COVID-19 vaccines have arrived, the ignorance has reached new heights. Or is it depths? Here’s The Washington Post’s bloodless headline: “On social media, vaccine misinformation mixes with extreme faith.”

Minnesota’s own Hennepin Healthcare must be dealing with a lot of it because the hospital felt the need to put out a fact sheet informing potential vaccine patients what’s not in the vaccine: “The COVID-19 vaccines do not contain a live or whole coronavirus, microchips, tracer technology, fetal tissue, stem cells, mercury, aluminum, luciferase, the Mark of the Beast, pork products or preservatives.”

Ok, let’s set aside microchips and tracer technologies for a moment. The Mark of the whatnow?

That would be the Mark of the Beast from the Book of Revelation, the most delightfully weird book of the New Testament.

Eric Vanden Eykel, a scholar of early Christian literature, calls the Mark of the Beast “a cryptic mark in Revelation which indicates allegiance to Satan.” Vanden Eykel goes on to argue that the Mark of the Beast probably refers to the Roman emperor Nero, who persecuted Christians. And the “mark” on the forehead or hand that is supposed to signify allegiance to Satan may have been money. (“No one can buy or sell who does not have the mark.”)

Vanden Eykel concludes: “While some may have lingering questions about COVID-19 vaccines, the question of whether those vaccines are linked to the mark of the beast shouldn’t be one of them.”

Glad we cleared that up.

Read Vanden Eykel’s entire piece here.

Hennepin Healthcare did not respond to a Reformer inquiry about the Mark of the Beast.

[1] Url: https://minnesotareformer.com/briefs/hennepin-healthcare-no-the-vaccine-does-not-contain-the-mark-of-the-beast/